The rising use of mobile communications systems has led to an increasing demand for enhancing efficiency and performance characteristics, such as increasing network capacity, data rate, signal quality, network coverage, and power efficiency. When a wireless signal is transmitted to a receiver, such as an antenna, the receiver often receives interference along with the signal, making it difficult for the receiver to determine the original signal. This interference may include interference caused by the multipath phenomenon and/or co-channel interference caused by other signals or random noise in the same frequency as the original signal. Smart antenna (SA) systems are designed to reduce these types of interferences, and thus enhance the performance characteristics discussed above.
A smart antenna system is generally located near a base station transceiver and combines an array of antenna elements with digital signal processing capabilities to receive and transmit signals in a spatially sensitive manner. In other words, a smart antenna can adapt the direction of transmissions in response to the signals it receives. Thus, a smart antenna system may be said to track, or follow, mobile communication devices (such as mobile phones or personal digital assistants) as they change their location or active status (such as idle, ready, or standby). For example, when a mobile user is located in a particular location within a sector, the smart antenna system may select a best beam that provides the best coverage for that location and transmit signals to and receive signals from the mobile through that best beam. As the user moves to new locations, the smart antenna system may adapt by switching to the beam or beams that provide the best coverage for those locations.